Due dates. Whether it’s building a house or implementing an enterprise quality management software (QMS) solution, everyone has them, everyone wants them. What does home construction have to do with going live with a new QMS solution? There are actually quite a few similarities.

Experts say that the cost of quality totals roughly 10 percent in the average organization, with some companies facing quality costs of up to 40 percent. If your plant is on the middle to upper end of these estimates, it’s likely company leadership considers your plant in need of immediate intervention.

Who’s more clever, engineers or designers? Alexa-connected toilet, anyone? How do you promote rigorous thinking? We discussed all of that and more during this week’s QDL.

“CES brings you... the Alexa-connected toilet!’

Just when you thought that nothing crazier than your clothes dryer could be connected to the internet... there’s this.

Happy New Year one and all! For our first QDL of 2019, we were pleased to present some thought-provoking content on the benefits of compromise, the dangers of rhetorical trickery, and the meaning of Chekhov’s gun. Let’s take a closer look:

If you’re a leader, you got to where you are because you think strategically and are killer at execution. You simply can’t get far without being good at both.

Now that you’re in charge of people, though, your ability to increase impact depends on how well you manage other people. You need your team to become smarter, sharper, A-players.

An industry, and even more so any individual company, is only as strong as its pipeline of incoming talent. This week on QDL we looked at this topic from a few different angles. Here’s what we covered at greater length:

The U.S.

As the global economy grows, it’s more necessary than ever to stay on top of efficiency. Keep up with increasing production demands by implementing a continuous improvement method to streamline the workflow.

Continuous improvement is an ongoing effort to improve products, services, and processes. It starts with small, incremental changes, and over time it adds up to produce major improvements to productivity, quality, and cost savings. A 5S system is an effective improvement tool to guide this process.

As of the 2010 Census, there were 27.9 million small businesses registered in the United States. That’s a lot of competition. To thrive and grow in such a competitive environment, business owners must make wise decisions, commit to high-quality results, and take care of their customers and employees. Those organizations that do are rewarded with organic growth. Those that don’t suffer perpetual stagnation.